Right now, I’m somewhere in the Yellowstone National Park. If I’m not still sleeping (may I be so lucky), I’m on the final leg of a 3-day, 50-mile snowshoe trek from West Yellowstone into the heart of the park and then up past Mammoth Hot Springs back into Montana. In addition to enjoying all the miles and the majesty of Yellowstone, I’ll also be testing out a ton of new gear: the Kahtoola FLIGHTdesk TS, Bridgedale socks, Vasque Velocity VST XCRs, Tevas with eVent, and some meals from Backpacker’s Pantry. However, that’s not why I’m posting. Nope, after this peaceful long weekend and a couple days of hard work in the office back east, I’ll return to the mountain west to attend the 2009 Outdoor Retail Winter Market in Salt Lake City for iRunFar. (Read iRF’s highlights of summer OR 2008.) As I did with last summer’s OR show, I’m calling for any questions readers want me to ask the below-listed companies I’ll be meeting with at the show.

Here are the companies I’m scheduled to meet with:

Ahnu

Brooks

END

eVent

GoLite

GoLite Footwear

Gu

High Sierra Sport Co.

Hydrapak

Inov-8

La Sportiva

Kayland

Klymit

Merrell

Montrail

New Balance

Oboz

Osprey

Patagonia Footwear

Petzl

Polartec

Saucony

Sportline

Teva

Timex

Vasque

In addition, pretty much every other outdoor company will be there, so I’ll be poking my head in pretty much everywhere and seeing what the latest trail running gear it. Oh, and I’ll also be having a great time. Nothing beats spending the weekend with a bunch of similarly-oriented individuals. :-)

Related articles:

Our Summer 2009 OR Wishlist and Call for Questions As you’ve probably caught on to by now, we’re gear geeks and keen observers of companies’ engagement of the trail running and ultrarunning communities. Traditionally, the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market...

Comments

3875 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.irunfar.com%2F2009%2F01%2F2009-winter-or-show-call-for-questions.html2009+Winter+OR+Show+-+Call+for+Questions2009-01-19+11%3A00%3A00Bryon+Powellhttp%3A%2F%2Firunfar.com%2F2009-winter-or-show-call-for-questions.php to “2009 Winter OR Show – Call for Questions”

Bryan,Could you ask Inov-8 if they plan on improving their bite valve design on the new hydration packs they introduced last year? I have used the Race Pro-18 and think it's great, but I destroyed the bite valve in about 5 uses. And I'm not even a vampire!

I'd like to see some info on the new Vasque Blurs SL that I saw in trail runner mag. The Blur is a pretty common shoes in the circles I run in so what changes are going on there? What's Brooks got cooking in their trail shoes, anything that fits between the Cascadia and the ASR?Any new changes in the La Sportiva mountain running line?Interested in any Green changes that you see anywhere at the show.Have fun!